New play denigrates rest-home workers.

I wonder whether it might pay for NZNO to object to the tone of Who wants to be 100?, the play by Roger Hall, which depicts life in a rest-home as an abomination.

My expectations may have been unrealistic in supposing a celebration of life of the individual, but neither did I expect the negative attitude toward the care provided in the rest-home environment, or the denigration of the old people in the play. The humour was largely vulgar and to do with bowels. The venue was packed and I was appalled at the impression these people came away with. If Roger Hall is not an advocate of euthanasia, then where is his compassion? I was left with the distinct impression that he thought it preferable to be sprayed with some "end-life deodorant" than to be old and disabled in some way. Old age is not for wimps, but what of those who enjoy seeing the sun rise to the end of their days? In our wealthy society, we owe it to them to take care of them well. If the family is unable to provide that care, then the rest-home, with all the ingredients of a mini-village, is the best place when home care is no longer an option.

The comments of a mere handful in the lift down from the Sky Tower said it all. They talked about the reality of it and wondered what people who worked in a rest-home thought about it. I let those few know I found it shallow, cruel and, in fact, largely ignorant of reality.

I was angry on behalf of all the fine caregivers and rest-home staff I have had the honour to work with over the past years. Never, for example, have I encountered the abusive "night nurse" portrayed in this play. In rest-homes, in particular, I have found staff to be unrelentingly kind and patient in the face of very difficult behaviours from some residents. Caring love is the overriding norm in caring for these people. The women providing it work very hard, frequently doubling shifts because staff numbers are seldom optimal, and do the job families cannot for various reasons. They endure low status and pay in society because of the nature of their work, when they deserve the opposite. To watch this play with its dispiriting message will be the last straw for many. I encourage them to stay away in droves, rather than be exposed to this specious portrayal of life in a rest-home. Else there will be even fewer of them to care for the old folk of this country.

Patricia Howden RN, nurse manager, Ascot House Retirement Home, Auckland

Playwright Roger Hall replies: I am sorry that Patricia Howden took such offence at Who Wants to be a Hundred? I certainly didn't intend to portray life in a rest-home as an abomination, Jar from it. Clearly, her main objection is the portrayal of one of the nurses who hits a patient. She may have never come across a nurse like that but the fact is they do exist.

The other carers in the play were shown, surely, to be sympathetic. The point of including such a character in the play was not to show rest-homes in a bad light but to put the plight of some rest-homes in front of the public. Many rest-homes are short staffed (as Patricia Howden admits herself). The play tries to examine why this is so, poor pay being one of the factors. The other is because, in many cases, rest-homes have switched from being altruistic (when they were run by religious groups) to becoming profit-making (bought solely as an investment). Almost inevitably when this happens, the first thing that is done by new management is to reduce staff. The fact that the staff member who does abuse patients easily walks into another job was meant to indicate the pressure that rest-homes are under to get staff.

I was not making .fun of elderly residents. Of course there are laughs from them, but mostly through their contrasting characters and personality clashes, not from the fact they are old. I took great pains to portray sympathetically the plights of those suffering from a stroke, from prostate cancer and from Alzheimers. Yes, the jokes are to do with bowels. They are "funny" until the pay-off when it should be seen that, in fact, they are not funny at all.

Who Wants to be a Hundred? is a play, not a documentary. Fifteen thousand people have now seen the play in Auckland: this is the first complaint I have received.